The Sleeping Dictionary (13 page)

I WAS ALLOWED to bring my sleeping mat from the lean-to and placed it on the cool floor near Bidushi’s bed. She slept quietly that evening, and the next morning her fever was gone. She was able to take water, weak tea, and dal soup, but nothing more.

“I’m sorry,” my friend murmured as I wiped her hands and face clean with a damp cloth.

“Sorry? I am so very happy to hear you speaking!”

“Sorry for being weak like this,” she whispered. “We must prepare for the examinations. How many days have I lost?”

“Just two,” I said, stroking back her hair. “And they are nothing to worry about.”

Bidushi ate some more soup and was well enough to have a bath. The next day, however, the fever returned, and her body shook for hours. Although she did not hear or feel my presence, I washed her and put water to her dry lips. How ironic that she had lost her parents in a flood but now was struggling because of a lack of water inside her. I had to get the water down, I thought as I tilted the cup into her mouth. She was like a fading flower, and flowers needed water to live.

The third day, Miss Jamison told Matron that the Bandopadhyays had found and spoken with a female physician, Dr. Sengupta, who could arrive tomorrow. I worried about that long delay, although Bidushi’s fever had again broken, enabling her to converse weakly and take more food and drink. Fever on, fever off; that was not the way cholera ran. Nurse-matron thought that her illness was starting to resemble malaria.

THAT NIGHT, AFTER I’d lit the mosquito coils and begun to tuck the mosquito net around Bidushi’s bed, she whispered, “Sleep with me tonight.”

“I will, dearest. My mat is here, and I will lie close by.” She didn’t know that I roused myself several times each night to put my face close to the net, to hear that she was still breathing. But what I heard—the fast, ragged sounds—did not reassure me much.

“No, inside the bed. Only you can stop Ravana from taking me tonight.”

She was speaking of the demon king who kidnapped King Rama’s wife, Sita. The holy story of the Ramayana, so loved by children, must have begun to infuse her dreams. I said, “That cannot happen.”

“I have not slept with another person since my mother, when I was small,” she said.

“Soon you will lie with Pankaj on a bed strewn with rose petals,” I said, willing it to be true. If Bidushi survived to leave Lockwood without me, I would not be the slightest bit envious or resentful. Just glad she was alive.

“Do not leave me, Didi,” she breathed. “Come inside my bed.”

I wasn’t frightened of catching her illness, but I did not know what Nurse-matron would think. The school’s Indian servants would be shocked, because for a Sudra to lie with a Brahmin girl would ruin her chances for a good afterlife. I thought about this seriously.

My friend moaned, and that decided it. I lifted the mosquito net enough to creep in beside her. How strange the bed was with its soft mattress covered with smooth white cotton. Under the sheet, we laced hands, and something jolted my heart. This girl, in the space of a few years, had replaced the sisters I’d lost, as well as my brother,
parents, and grandparents. I clung to her because of my own longing, not just hers.

“You must take care of Pankaj,” Bidushi whispered to me. “Will you promise?”

“He will soon be here,” I soothed. “He is aboard the ship and will be in India soon.”

“Write a good-bye letter for me,” Bidushi whispered.

This was the wrong way for her to think. Without hope, she would not have the strength to live. “There is no need for a letter. The doctor is coming tomorrow. You will feel better once you have the proper medicine.”

“No. I am already gone! I feel it.”

“Don’t talk nonsense.” I pulled her so close that her heart beat against mine. “Everything will be right as rain.”

“No,” Bidushi repeated sadly. “The rainy season will come, but I will not feel a single drop.”

And that night, I was awakened not by any cries from her, but by her fast breathing and burning-hot body. I left the cot to soak cloths in cold water and press them all over her, but to no avail. I was so frightened by Bidushi’s condition that I went to call for Nurse-matron, who slept in her own small room just outside the infirmary. She rang for the bhisti, who came rubbing sleep out of his eyes to carry buckets of cool water into the infirmary bathtub. Then I carried my friend, who in just a few days had shrunk to such a low weight, into the water.

Bidushi was back at 105 degrees Fahrenheit when Dr. Sengupta arrived in the tonga driven by Abbas the next morning. From the corner of the infirmary, I watched the small woman with large spectacles examine Bidushi and take a needle to her arm to collect blood. This blood went into a glass tube set into a flask filled with chilled water. She told me to give it to Abbas to bring right away to the Midnapore clinic. I admired the doctor’s calm, directive manner, and marveled that an Indian woman had this job that I thought only
Englishmen could do. How clever she must be; surely she would save Bidushi.

The next morning, the clinic’s doctor confirmed that Bidushi had malaria. A driver came with medicine and a metal stand that held bags of liquid that dripped through a tube into Bidushi’s arm. Dr. Sengupta started giving Bidushi the medication mepacrine and asked that Bidushi’s aunt and uncle be summoned.

Around teatime the next day, the chowkidars who guarded the school’s gate sent word up to the building that the jamidar-uncle and jamidar-auntie had arrived. Miss Jamison sent me out of the sickroom to give the Mukherjees privacy with their niece. My head rebelled against this, knowing how Bidushi felt about them, but I knew it was their right.

Miss Rachael put me on duty washing the baseboards along the hallways. I made sure to work slowly in the hallway outside the infirmary, so I could spy on the visitors. Bidushi had told me enough about her aunt that I easily recognized her puffy face with eyes as small and hard as black dal. She was wearing a good bit of jewelry—Bidushi’s mother’s, I guessed. The lady’s husband, Barun Mukherjee, was almost as tall as his elder brother, but was lacking the old jamidar’s kind features.

Two of the school’s guest rooms were occupied now: one by Dr. Sengupta, and the other by the jamidar-uncle and his wife. Their arrival caused notice by the English and Anglo-Indian girls who joked about the jamidarni-auntie’s heavy jewelry being paste. Lalit, the Brahmin cook who normally just prepared simple meals for the school’s few Hindu students and large Hindu staff, suddenly had to cook fancy vegetarian meals for the Mukherjees. He grumbled about it mightily, so I offered to help with kitchen cleaning, because, of course, I could not touch their food.

The next day as I was scrubbing out a pot with ash, Miss Rachael came into the kitchen. She stood watching me for a while before saying, “You’re looking thin.”

“It doesn’t matter.” It was true that I’d barely eaten over the last few days; yet she could not be asking because she was concerned about me. It was leading to something else.

“Why are you in this kitchen?”

“Lalit-dada is cooking many more dishes now and asked me to help with cleaning,” I answered, keeping my eyes on the pot, because I didn’t want her to accuse me of disrespect; I just wanted her to go away.

“Well, there’s a great deal more I have for you to do, but let me tell you some news: Your friend is dying. The bhisti heard the doctor tell her parents.”

“They are not her parents,” I said as my mind whirled. Bidushi had medicine; she could not be dying. Miss Rachael had lied to me and other people before. This could be another of her cruel fabrications; I would not believe it.

THAT NIGHT I went to the infirmary door and was told by Nurse-matron to sleep in the lean-to. This troubled me, for I worried whether it might be true that Bidushi was doing worse. Matron would not say, and I couldn’t bear not knowing. So the next morning, even before the crows cawed, I went silently to the outdoor tank to bathe. Just as I was tying on my clean pink sari, a car horn sounded.

The only reason for the noise was a visitor outside the school gate, which was locked every evening. I hurried to the stables and called to the boys who slept there about the horn and then hastened down the driveway myself. A taxi had come with a turbaned Sikh driver at the wheel. In the seat next to him was a clean-shaven young man wearing glasses, and in the back was an older well-dressed couple still half asleep. I waited at the gate until the stable boy came running with a key to unlock the padlock.

I followed the car as it drew up to the portico. Without waiting
for a chowkidar’s aid, the young man unfolded himself from the car. He was tall and wore a Western gentleman’s suit. His dark hair waved back from a high, intelligent forehead. He had round gold-rimmed spectacles that made him look wise beyond his age. I stared openly, realizing he was as fine and beautiful as the words he’d written to me. I loved him; so would Bidushi.

“Will you please tell the authorities that the Bandopadhyays are here to consult with Dr. Sengupta?” Pankaj Bandopadhyay’s voice was courteous and carried what I guessed must be a sophisticated city accent. How breathtaking he was: even more than I imagined.

“Yes, of course. I’d almost forgotten you were coming!”

He paused, as if my words had startled him. Then, looking at me strangely, he said, “I reached Calcutta yesterday. My parents and I have come to see my fiancée, Bidushi Mukherjee. She is a student here who is seriously ill.”

“Yes, I know. I will tell them. Please wait.” I ran back to the school building, elated that Pankaj had come, like a prince to awaken and save the sleeping princess. I awoke the bearer who was sleeping in the hallway and asked him to summon the bhisti to bring hot water to the infirmary, while the kitchen staff needed to make tea for the visitors and doctor. I next rapped on the doctor’s door and called to her that bed tea was forthcoming and that the Bandopadhyays had arrived.

But when I reached the door to the infirmary, it was still locked. Desperate to awaken and bathe Bidushi, I went out a side door into the garden and came around to one of the infirmary’s open windows and pulled myself up through it into the room.

To my relief, Bidushi’s stomach was rising and falling with her breath. Her stomach was hard and round, protruding more than before. When I approached her and touched her hand, her eyes flickered.

“Pankaj is here,” I said. “We must prepare for him!”

Slowly, she turned her head toward me.

“He came straight here with his family. I will wash you because
they will come to your bedside later on.” I was filled with urgency that she appear as fresh as she could. Her beauty was gone; maybe with washing I could bring it back.

“Too cold,” whimpered Bidushi, although the temperature of her hand was pure heat.

“Heavens, what are you doing in here?” Nurse-matron had unlocked the main infirmary door and come inside. The bhisti was behind her, carrying his heavy drum of water.

“Her fiancé just arrived. I came to clean her and change her sheets.”

“Yes, I’ve heard about the visitors. They’re in the parlor having tea. All right then, you may help with her bath, but let me take her temperature first.” She put her hand to Bidushi’s forehead. “God only knows why this medicine is taking so long to have any effect.”

At least now Bidushi knew Pankaj was there. Because of this, I thought she could rally. After all, love was the most powerful medicine. Not just what Pankaj felt for Bidushi; but what I felt for both of them, too.

Why is it that the best moments pass fleetingly—and bad minutes feel like days? I paced the hallway, ready to run for supplies if Matron or Dr. Sengupta put their head out the door. I was not allowed at the bedside but knew her aunt and uncle were there. Every so often they would exit to drink tea in Miss Jamison’s study, while the Bandopa-dhyays took their turn. All this switching had come about because Dr. Sengupta thought too much company would tire Bidushi.

“That sick girl will ruin chances for a wedding.” I overheard the jamidarni-auntie fretting to her husband. “If she has another fit, they’ll believe that a devil’s inside her. I always suspected, but here is proof.”